Actually some simple javascript and server script will load the page in
the proper frameset solving the problem for better than 85% of the
possible visitors (lets not argue about if that 15% is worth it or not
because I can probably guess we already disagree about that.)
Actually similar issue as above.
Now, here is a shocker, I completely agree with you. For this
particular application, while you could easily use frames, there is no
advantage to doing so.
Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with frames, if they are used in
the right context. Frames are great because they can be resized, if the
author has not restricted that, so a menu can be collapsed if desired.
As a matter of fact, I built the interface for a small "app" for
screenwriters called ScriptAssist [URL:
http://www.scriptassist.com/sample.asp]. It is frame based, and the files
are on the user's system. Search functionality is provided with
JavaScript, and the user is advised that it is necessary. There are over
2200 links in the menu, and 7000 links in the various subpages. Since it
is being served on the user's system, and it must be able to be used
without an Internet connection, there was no way to use server side
includes. Making the sample pages to sell the product was a challenge,
because we did not want to use frames for the reasons above, and yet, we
had to make it *look* like the product. I used CSS and server side
includes. The only thing I could not duplicate was the ability to resize
the menu.